HIV and Family Planning Integration in Tanzania Building on the Pepfar Platform to Advance Global Health
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a report of the csis global health policy center HIV and Family Planning Integration in Tanzania building on the pepfar platform to advance global health 1800 K Street, NW | Washington, DC 20006 Author Tel: (202) 887-0200 | Fax: (202) 775-3199 Janet Fleischman E-mail: [email protected] | Web: www.csis.org July 2012 CHARTING our future Blank a report of the csis global health policy center HIV and Family Planning Integration in Tanzania building on the pepfar platform to advance global health Author Janet Fleischman July 2012 CHARTING our future About CSIS—50th Anniversary Year For 50 years, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has developed practical solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. As we celebrate this milestone, CSIS scholars continue to provide strategic insights and bipartisan policy solutions to help decisionmakers chart a course toward a better world. CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Center’s more than 200 full-time staff and large network of affiliated scholars conduct research and analysis and develop policy initiatives that look to the future and anticipate change. Since 1962, CSIS has been dedicated to finding ways to sustain American prominence and prosperity as a force for good in the world. After 50 years, CSIS has become one of the world’s preeminent international policy institutions focused on defense and security; regional stability; and transnational challenges ranging from energy and climate to global development and economic integration. Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn has chaired the CSIS Board of Trustees since 1999. John J. Hamre became the Center’s president and chief executive officer in 2000. CSIS was founded by David M. Abshire and Admiral Arleigh Burke. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views expressed herein should be understood to be solely those of the author(s). © 2012 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved. Cover photo: Reproductive and child health clinic in Iringa, Tanzania, 2012. This health care worker provides integrated family planning services and HIV counseling and testing. Photo credit: Janet Fleischman. Center for Strategic and International Studies 1800 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006 Tel: (202) 887-0200 Fax: (202) 775-3199 Web: www.csis.org mbedd hiv and family planning integration in tanzania building on the pepfar platform to advance global health Janet Fleischman1 Executive Summary The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is well positioned to serve as a foundation for other global health programs, building on its health infrastructure, training, and systems. To fulfill that potential in the vital area of women’s health will require integrating HIV/AIDS services with family planning and reproductive health services. The results from U.S. health investments in Tanzania indicate that this is a feasible and cost-effective strategy to combat the AIDS epidemic and promote the health of women and girls, and through them their families and communities. The lessons being learned in Tanzania should inform the scale up of strategic integration under PEPFAR for these critical interventions. Support for using the PEPFAR platform to provide more comprehensive health services for women, and specifically for family planning, has gained momentum in recent years, based on growing evidence demonstrating the important program synergies and health benefits that flow from these linkages.2 As more women living with HIV access antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, the HIV platform presents a critical opportunity to provide the information and services they need to decide the number and timing of their pregnancies. Importantly, this approach includes preventing new HIV infections by reducing unintended pregnancies, thereby preventing mother- to-child-transmission (PMTCT). Similarly, integrating HIV services into family planning, 1 Janet Fleischman is a senior associate with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center. She conducted the mission to Tanzania with Phillip Nieburg, also a senior associate with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center. 2 See World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Population Fund (UNFPA), “Glion Consultation on Strengthening the Linkages between Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS: Family Planning and HIV/AIDS in Women and Children,” 2006, http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/advocacymaterials/ glionconsultationsummary_DF.pdf; Rose Wilcher, Willard Cates Jr., and Simon Gregson, “Family Planning and HIV: Strange Bedfellows No Longer,” AIDS 23, sup. 1 (November 2009): s1–s6, http://journals.lww.com/aidsonline/Fulltext/2009/11001/Family_planning_and_HIV__strange_bedfellows _no.1.aspx; Micah Gilmer and Brian Baughan, “Making the Case for Integration,” Tides Foundation, May 2010, http://www.tides.org/fileadmin/user/pdf/Tides-Africa-Fund-HIV-Making-the-Case-for-Integration- Report.pdf. | 1 reproductive health,3 and maternal and child health programs helps prevent HIV infection in women and girls, while increasing access for HIV-infected women to ARV treatment and to PMTCT programs to help ensure that their children remain uninfected. This report examines the situation in Tanzania, where the United States has supported the national government in making notable progress toward integrating HIV services with family planning and reproductive health (RH), particularly through PMTCT programs. Integration in Tanzania has been driven by a number of factors, including political commitment from the national government, specified funding from the United States, and experience brought by some PEPFAR implementing partners in the area of family planning–HIV integration. Yet despite the improved policy environment, ongoing barriers remain in implementation, financing for integration, and integration of family planning as a core component of PEPFAR’s treatment programs. In Tanzania, the United States has made important commitments to provide a more complete range of health services for women and girls, through PEPFAR, the Office of Population and Reproductive Health at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and U.S. bilateral program activities, all of which fall under the Global Health Initiative (GHI).4 Despite the politics that surround discussions of family planning in the United States and the challenges of integrating vertical programs, there is broad consensus among health experts that HIV and family planning services should be closely linked and that advancing integration is a smart and effective way to expand the impact of U.S. health investments. However, many challenges remain in pursuing integration. In Tanzania, challenges include the large unmet need for family planning among HIV-positive and HIV-negative women; chronic stock-outs of family planning commodities; the need for training and ongoing support for both HIV and family planning providers to ensure quality integrated services; and the severe shortages of health workers. For the U.S. government, challenges revolve around galvanizing domestic bipartisan support for family planning–HIV integration in the current polarized environment, 3 Most public health experts include family planning within the broader context of reproductive health services, such as antenatal and postpartum maternal and newborn care, safe birthing services, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), postabortion care, obstetric fistula care, and cervical cancer screening. The WHO definition of reproductive health does not include abortion. 4 On July 3, 2012, the GHI principals—Administrator Rajiv Shah of USAID, Ambassador Eric Goosby of PEPFAR, Director Thomas Frieden of CDC, and Executive Director of GHI Lois Quam—published a joint message stating the office of the Global Health Initiative will be closed and that an office of Global Health Diplomacy will be set up at the State Department. This office will have the mandate to ensure that GHI principles are implemented in the field. GHI country teams will continue to work to implement GHI strategies under the leadership of the U.S. ambassador. See “Global Health Initiative Next Steps—A Joint Message,” U.S. Global Health Initiative, http://www.ghi.gov/newsroom/blogs/2012/194472.htm. At this writing, it is unclear what these changes will mean for the direction of GHI in Washington, and the implementation at the country level. 2 | hiv and family planning integration in tanzania and ensuring that such integration is prioritized and measured. Underlying all these challenges is the need to ensure that the rights of women and girls in Tanzania are respected. In Tanzania, HIV prevalence is 7 percent for females and 5 percent for males; young women aged 15 to 24 are infected at rates four times higher than men their age, and most of these women were infected through sexual transmission. Under the U.S. Global Health Initiative (GHI), the interagency GHI country team in Tanzania has made women’s and girls’ health a priority area, with a special focus on aligning U.S. health programs across delivery platforms and linking HIV with family planning, reproductive health, and maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) programs. In a move toward greater effectiveness in the health sector, the Tanzanian government is also bringing these services together under the auspices of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare’s Reproductive and Child Health Services. Policy Options PEPFAR’s support for expanding linkages between HIV and family planning in Tanzania